The budget has been stuck in the Joint Finance Committee for weeks as conservative Republicans and really, really, really conservative Republicanscan't agree on just how much of that "crap budget" as one GOP member put it should stay, go or be, uh, supplemented.

The old budget can be extended, but what kind of message about certainty and stability and competence are Walker and his allies sending?

5 comments:

Anonymous
said...

James, you have missed an important point in this story. When Saukville Republican State Rep. Robert Brooks says that it is a "crap" budget, this is actually the most sincere complement he can give. The Republican Party is a crap party that stands for crap things. You can see this yourself in all the blog posts here about Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFO). Today's Republican love to wallow in crap. This is who they are. This is what they stand for.

So expect the budget to be passed soon. The posturing we've seen has just been a stall so that the Republicans can spend more time enjoying the crap budget. Crap, to the Republicans, smells sweet and is a source of enjoyment.

Maybe he won't do anything on the budget tonight because he plans to swoop in and settle the transit labor dispute. On the other hand, if he can't look like Reagan and fire all the drivers, he won't see the point.

Disfunctional Republican government. GINO Scott Walker absent. Vos says he don't need no stinkin' JFC to pass the Assembly version of the budget. Alberta Darling does not know her ass from a hole in the ground. The bunch make ground hogs look smart.

But they can't pass a budget until they are sure they will be able to cut the pay for contractors employees via the prevailing wage law. It said in our paper this morning that the reps have it pretty well sewn up with making some changes to the law, but the senators don't want mickey mouse changes, they want a full repeal of the law. Some contractors want a full repeal and others don't. In any case they are out to gut state revenues once again by cutting wages. Sure makes sense with the already gutted budget they are trying to pass with no increase in revenues in May doesn't it. How did human beings get to be so dumb. Doesn't anyone have an ounce of common sense anymore. This must be their way of shrinking government. First you shrink wages and eliminate the middle class, and then you have to shrink government because there are not enough revenues to maintain it. That's some economic plan alright.

Don't shrink the legislators' per diem, though -- they gotta have some fun while they're in Madison, otherwise what's the point of being a Koch sock puppet? And Walker's cronies need to be paid off, his donors must be rewarded with padded contracts or powerful regulatory positions as hen house guards, his ex-staff require hush money to maintain radio silence and the palace guard must have raises or the lid comes off the whole thing. 'Cause that's where democracy is now in Wisconsin -- the people must be kept away from their representatives, the Governor must be protected from the people.

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"A little fill here and there may seem to be nothing to become excited about. But one fill, though comparatively inconsequential, may lead to another, and another, and before long a great body may be eaten away until it may no longer exist. Our navigable waters are a precious natural heritage, once gone, they disappear forever," wrote the Wisconsin Supreme Court in its 1960 opinion resolving Hixon v. PSC and buttressing The Public Trust Doctrine, Article IX of the Wisconsin State Constitution.

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James Rowen's Bio

James Rowen, a writer and consultant, has worked for newspapers, and as the senior Mayoral staffer, in Madison and Milwaukee, WI. This blog began on 2/2/ 2007. Posts run also at various news sites, including The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel's "Purple Wisconsin."